This is really the kind of question that interests me, more than 'beliefs' as such. I've read up on New Thought quite a bit, and know the basics. But I am interested in what it means to be a New Thought person today, and especially in what kinds of practices are done.

How similar is the practice of one New Thought person to another's? Would you meet and worship -- is that important? Is it all about affirmations, prayer, meditation, healing? Does it interface with other things?

We're very varied. Unity is the largest national church these days, and Religious Science comes in second place. That's for those of us who are church people, of course. We're like any other faith...for some of us, church and worship are important, for many of us we just don't bother. Like Catholics.

In terms of many modern New Thoughters, our practices consist of church and regular spiritual activity...like retreats, esoteric workshops, divination, energy healing, etc. The whole point of New Thought, though, is conscious union with God.

I think Rev. Stan explained that well in his paper "From the Secret to the Teaching" http://tigerseyedowsing.com/ds/other/The_Secret_to_The_Teaching.html .

In essence, the true practice of a New Thoughter is to move through life deepening her understanding of God, while learning to understand that God is the underlying source of all things.

Or, as we say simply put, you're God, in drag.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

Didn't even know the Unity Church had anything to do with New Thought.... bit ignorant that way!

So in your case, when you say:

like retreats, esoteric workshops, divination, energy healing

... what would you personally be into? Just trying to get my bearings here, and wondering if I would recognize the names you'd throw out etc.

Would you consider yourself anything more to do with Christ than any other religious teacher? (Or would any New Thoughter?)

It's interesting to think about you having been on the Damanhur mailing list... and I recall your saying on the 'sacred text' thread that you'd read a few of the things I'd read, and you liked the idea of an 'ensouled object' etc. From that I kind of gathered that you interpret being involved in New Thought quite freely?

I mean when you say this:

In essence, the true practice of a New Thoughter is to move through life deepening her understanding of God, while learning to understand that God is the underlying source of all things.

... it would not do badly for me either in my capacity as an Hermetic. (Except the concept of 'God' to me might be more complex, because I tend to work off of my own experience...).

Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science, and she had her assistant Emma Hopkins who fought with her and split away, and became the "teacher of teachers". She taught the Brooks sisters in Denver, who founded Divine Science, and the Fillmores, who founded Unity School of Christianity. Religious Science and Universal Foundation for Better Living came along later as offshoots of Divine Science. I put a good bit of detail into that at www.lessonsintruth.info for other history buffs

Where the Brooks sisters and the Fillmores disagreed with Emma was over the concept of Pantheism... we found ourselves Pantheists, while Ms. Eddy (and subsequently Emma) taught that Pantheism was a false teaching.

Personally, I'm a dual member of Unity School of Christianity and the Church of Divine Science. There's not much difference; Unity teaches more esoteric work, like alternative healing methods and channelling and reincarnation, while Divine Science shies more away from that. Both are good organizations to me.

Personally, I'm a Reiki master, if out of practice.. I'm a dowser, as my screename denotes :p and I studied EFT, amongst other things.

In Unity and Divine Science, we view the Christ in a New Age sense; the Christ-spirit is the undivided presence of God in man. We see people as Christed, or enlightened, when they reach that point. We see Jesus as the example, the ultimate expression of the Christ in human form- and the idea is to utilize his teachings to cultivate the Christ-spirit in us.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

Right I guess I get that. I'd heard of Eddy and Hopkins and I knew there was a series of relations there, but am hazy on detail.

So I'm hazy on 'pantheism' too, is it essentially the idea that 'the divine is immanent in all things' or something of that kind? I have great problems with those kinds of words at times... people give a dictionary definition but I don't always see what difference it makes in their lives, I don't get the practice side of it.

I'm curious too what 'channelling' the Unity School teaches -- eg. what kinds of beings are channelled.

Is there anything you would not feel comfortable with as part of a New Thought practice? Anything I couldn't get away with?

Pantheism has a diverse definition and there are different kinds. We had a pantheist here on this board who was practically polar opposites with the spiritual pantheists like myself... in New Thought pantheism, though, we teach that God the Good is everything; the All That Is, and All That Is is Good. We deny the existence of darkness and evil, and proclaim there is only good. This is in opposition to Gnosticism, which teaches duality and a yin-yang of dark and light. It also drives Gillyflower insane.

TED: Go Pantheism!

Gilly:

So to answer your question in terms of my faith (which is fundamentalist New Thought) Pantheism is God expressing as the creative energy of the Universe, manifesting in the physical as all things, leaving no darkness or evil anywhere- only the illusion of it, created by our ignorance.

As for channeling, we sell most any channelled books in our churches, like Kryon, Seth, and who-all have you. There was a reconstructionist push in the 80s to ban all channelled books and the Unity Church itself purged their library of all things channelled. That didn't last long. We teach A Course in Miracles in most all Unity churches. I personally have ACIM, Kryon books, and a few others that some individuals put out over the years, including the Betty Book (which I never actually read). Even though we believe in "One God, omnipresent", we have no problem with the existence of various spirits or demigods or what have you, as they (like us) may exist as an individual consciousness yet are still part of the Universe expressed by the Divine.

It's a pretty open religion... as in all groups of course, there are those who will happily tell you what others can and can't do. Politically, socially and spiritually. I steer clear of them though in my practice and try not to be that way myself. As for me personally, I'm not comfortable with anything luciferian, which is no doubt a product of my raising as a fundamentalist Christian viewing Lucifer as the deceiver; so Theosophy et al are out. On the same token, it can be argued that most of our practices are luciferian, and that may be true; but I try to focus on belief of God the Good, and of Truth.. so by default, that should rule out Lucifer should he exist and be as mean and deceitful as he's made out to be.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

That would explain why I've never been able to get a good clear image of what people mean by it. Personally I can see the point of believing 'all that is is good' and also of the 'light/dark' idea too (although the Gnostic viewpoint I think is more nuanced and also varies widely throughout the original literature if memory serves... not that it's something I'm hugely up on) ... I couldn't express my own view as either one or the other personally.

Like I mentioned I'm always more interested in practices than beliefs anyhow. I looked through ACIM quite a while back, and I seem to remember that had practices in the book.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

Oh, do read The Betty Book, TED. It's quite interesting since it chronicles the experiences of Stewart Edward White who was a fairly prominent journalist and nature writer of the mid-20th century and his wife Betty with the world of "woo-woo." < wink and grin >

It's been years and years since I ran across his several books on Betty's channeling. I don't now recall if it was a fever or accident that brought on that ability, but the results were a surprise to both of the Whites. Up to that time, they'd been a pretty solid American couple, educated, articulate and well-traveled but hardly messing with such mumbo-jumbo as channeling.

Ultimately, both came to believe in a "world beyond" whereas I don't think either had been particularly into any form of spirituality or religion before that. Rather akin to Edgar Cayce's eventual acceptance of reincarnation as a result of what came through in his trance readings when his lifelong bent had been fundamentalist Christianity.

TigersEyeDowsing wrote:Pantheism has a diverse definition and there are different kinds. We had a pantheist here on this board who was practically polar opposites with the spiritual pantheists like myself... in New Thought pantheism, though, we teach that God the Good is everything; the All That Is, and All That Is is Good. We deny the existence of darkness and evil, and proclaim there is only good. This is in opposition to Gnosticism, which teaches duality and a yin-yang of dark and light. It also drives Gillyflower insane.

TED: Go Pantheism!

Gilly:

Yes, it does.

_________________Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius

_________________Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

It's not really a big deal; Gilly sees the world "as above, so below", in terms that there's suffering, strife, good and evil, etc. in our world and also with the gods. She's a dualist, as most people are. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I think I got that down right).

In Christian Science, and later in New Thought, we deny the reality of the existence of evil, only the appearance of it. That all things and people are essentially good at the spiritual core, we just fuck it up in our little human ways by not acting in our true nature.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

You're right except about the dualism part. That isn't part of my religion.

_________________Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

P, it might interest you that I went through a school of Buddhism for a short while but dropped out. I still think that Buddhism, at its core, is one of the most noble faiths to hit the planet. Like Christianity though, most of its been skewed and damaged over the years. Just since we were talking about suffering.

Unity Church is known as the bridge between Buddhism and Christianity, and to me at their foundational core the two go hand in hand.

_________________"I am often told that Divine Science is a difficult religion to live, and that other forms of religious belief afford an easier way. Perhaps this is true; for in Divine Science we never hold anyone else responsible for the things that come to us; we hold ourselves responsible for meeting the experiences of the day with power and of living our own lives divinely." – Nona Brooks

I have to go pick up the dog then back here, then off to work - I didn't want you to think I wasn't going to respond.

_________________Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius